Weekend Writing Warriors (HIS) (RO) #8sunday

It's Sunday and time for the Weekend Writing Warriors . Participants post 8-10 sentences from a writing project, either published or unpublished.

For today, I'm sharing a bit from book 2 in my award-winning, Victorian polyamorous adventure series ~ Loving Leonardo - The Quest

First my 10 with details after~

I wished I could simply lose myself in loving. But I didn’t have a means to close my mind to the ticker tape thoughts that ran endlessly.

Thomas had always been my connection to the world that lay beyond titles and privilege — an enviable salt of the earth who might go where he wished and do as he pleased. Through his connections to other servants, he knew the rough side of London. Anything I’d learned about the city’s seedier side I’d learned from him. If he didn’t know, he’d know someone who knew someone who did. But Thom was gone. I had no such connections and I felt as helpless and vulnerable as a quail chick without a wing to hide under.

A madman was out there in a dark corner, an insidious spider weaving his web and waiting for the day I’d innocently stumble into it. Bruno wished to hurt me and how I saw it, he had several ways in which to do this.

Blurb~
With Leonardo da Vinci’s book of love poems and sketches safe in their possession, lovers Nicolas, Ellie, and Luca discover the book harbors a secret – carefully disguised declarations of love from Leonardo to his long-time lover Salai. The trio begins a quest to follow the book’s clues to other hidden messages of love tucked into well-known da Vinci masterpieces now scattered across Europe. Their quest is cut short however, when a tragic turn of events reveals a terrible truth – Conte Bruno lives and is bent upon revenge.

Setting the Stage~
The rough seas of the English Channel have calmed and now Ellie and Luca join Nicolas in London. A lot has happened since he left them in Paris. 

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Weekend Writing Warriors #8sunday (HIS)(RO)(LGBT)

It's Sunday and time for the Weekend Writing Warriors. Participants post 8-10 sentences from a writing project, either published or unpublished. Today it's a bit from the steamy side of my imagination-- Loving Leonardo - the Quest -- (Book 2 in my award-winning, Victorian polyamorous romance-- the ongoing Loving Leonardo series.)

First my 8, then details after~

The area bustled with shipping business during the day and

business of another sort at night. The Bishop’s Moke sat at the end of a rather ratty street where fishmongers dumped their cleanings on the cobblestone for the dogs, cats, and vermin. I steeled myself to the street urchins picking through the stinking refuse for their own meal. Rome wasn’t the only city with the capacity to bring me low. Ahead the sound of St Mary-le-Bow’s church bells rang the eighth hour. A moment later, a cloying flower-over-fish odor enveloped me. In an instant, I was accosted by a prostitute. “Cor you are a ‘andsome one, what say you and I slip ‘round back and wet that wick o’ yours, eh dearie?”
     I attempted to take her arms from me, for in the gaslight I could clearly see that the rough-looking paint on her lips did little to hide the sores of syphilis. My bile rose.  

Behind the scenes for the snippet above:

Luca has gone missing and Conte Bruno would like nothing better than to find him. In the scene above, Nicolas, dressed in a working man's attire and going by a tip, searches the society’s hedges on London's Fleet Street.

 >>۞<<۞>>۞<<

"...a very sexy, smart, and scintillating read."
~Coffee Time Romance

Buy on Amazon

Save $$ -- Get books 1 & 2 in the Leonardo Chronicles!

۞>>>>۞<<<<۞
Just 99¢! By the authors from Romance Books '4' Us

HOW to WIN OUR ENTICE ME CONTEST♥♥♥

In honor of the first anthology by the Authors of Romance Books '4' Us, we're running an additional October contest. Prizes include a $100 Amazon Gift Card and a terrific "super power" Romance Reader or Romance Author t-shirt. If you're into romances, the t-shirt will make you smile. 
Three ways to enter!
 

  ۞>>Weekend Happenings<<۞

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Rose Anderson writes award-winning intimate love stories.
Find them all wherever books are sold.
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Weekend Writing Warriors (HIS) (FA) #8sunday

It's Sunday and time for the Weekend Writing Warriors. 
Participants post 8-10 sentences from a writing project, either published or unpublished.

I have a *new* pen name and another direction for my creativity. While Rose Anderson writes the intimate side of award-winning romance and will continue to do so, Madeline Archer will write the other flavors of fiction. Madeline will keep my writing styles and genres separate and write everything Rose doesn't. It might be a sweeter love story, an otherworldly walk in the twilight zone, or something dark...

Today it's a bit from the sweeter side of my imagination ~

Heart of Stone. This story is part of Entice Me ~ a multi-author anthology by the authors from Romance Books '4' Us. Nine luscious love stories make up our 99¢ anthology.
(Watch for the pre-order!)

First my 10 with details after...

Wiping her hands on her apron, she turned back to the trailhead and waited. Her daughter’s family lived on the adjacent lands, in the clearing below the wooded hillside. It should not take this long for Abigayle to venture here. The bird returned and widely circled three more times before disappearing beyond the trees. Finding his behavior both anxious and agitated, Finola frowned and murmured,

“Where are ye, girl?”

Turning to the packrat sitting atop the pork barrel, she told her familiar, “I’m feelin’ uneasy, Martin. Abigayle should have come by now.” Her chin jerked skyward, she mumbled, “And will you look at him? Something is amiss.”

Martin nodded.

Blurb~
The story opens with the notorious witch hunts in 17th Century Salem, Massachusetts.

As formal education for women lacks substance in her own country, Neila Flannigan leaves Ireland in 1904 to attend Radcliffe women’s college America. Shy and introverted, Neila passes her lonesome hours sketching the Harvard grounds and sending drawings home to her father. A chance encounter with a kind and elderly Irish woman inspires her to sketch a statue in an old, unused building. Desperately lonely, Neila ends up sharing her thoughts and feelings with a man carved in stone. Some days it feels like he listens.

Setting the Stage~
In the scene above, the notion of foreboding dogging Finola Maguire's steps all day comes to fruition when a piebald raven swoops into view. He's not actually a raven but Nicodemus her daughter’s witch's familiar in bird form. The ancient eldrich spirit seems agitated...

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Weekend Writing Warriors #8sunday (RO) (FA)

It's Sunday and time for the Weekend Writing Warriors. Participants post 8-10 sentences from a writing project, either published or unpublished. Today it's a bit from the sweeter side of my imagination ~ The Changeling. Coming October 2015.

First my 10, followed by details~
Listening to the exchange, a niggling recollection stayed just out of Osgood’s reach. Awash with a sense of familiar and feeling unaccountably unsettled, he recorked the wine and left the butlery to join the women in their transaction. As he advanced down the hall, he got a good look at the peddler. She was old and crabbed and looked to be in advanced age. That old peddler has been here before. His brows drew downward as the elusive memory popped into his mind. Twenty years ago! Nearly twenty years had passed but she’d hadn’t aged a day, in fact, she looked exactly the same. As the woman turned to leave, he hurried down the corridor, shouting, “Stop madam! Stop right there!”

What just happened~ Osgood is decanting the sherry when he hears a voice that sounds disturbingly familiar. It turns out it belongs to that old woman who tried to kidnap young master Lenox as a boy. She hasn't aged a day, and for good reason. That person at the door is not an apple peddler nor is she an old woman.

Weekend Writing Warriors #8sunday (RO)(ER)

It's Sunday and time for the Weekend Writing Warriors. Participants post 8-10 sentences from a writing project, either published or unpublished. Today it's another bit from The Leonardo Chronicles a bind-up of my award-winning, Victorian polyamorous series Loving Leonardo.

First my 10, followed by details~
Over the past two days, I’d barely eaten a bite nor slept more than a few hours at best. Nightmares seemed to come the moment I closed my eyes. Card-dealing gypsies played a prominent role, as did their cards of doom. Rolling, bone-crushing carriages carrying screaming women or led by screaming horses competed for vividness with the caved-in face of the man I’d killed in Venice. I saw Thomas and Ellie savaged while torches blazed, and books, paintings, and ossuary bones fell from shelves and walls in an avalanche. In one nightmare, Luca emerged from a mangled carriage like a marble nude streaked in blood. In another, Bruno laid dead at the bottom of the staircase with staring facsimile eyes painted on his closed eyelids, which then opened to reveal the pale cold stare of a corpse. Several times I woke in a panic, having dreamt everyone I loved was dead or gone. I missed Ellie and Luca desperately at night. While I’d had several nightmares since leaving Venice, usually I was able to fall back asleep by simply feeling their bodies against mine.

What just happened~A telegram to Nicolas necessitates he leave their quest in Paris and return to London ahead of the others. It's bad news, the addition of which adds to the growing unease that has already manifested several nightmares. Away from his companions, the disturbing dreams return full force. He can't shake the fear that something is brewing...



What's at the heart of this unusual love story? 
Loving Leonardo has a message of tolerance between the lines. Aside from that, it's an exciting, sexy romp through Victorian Europe on a quest for a book written and illustrated by Leonardo da Vinci for his homosexual lover Salai. Discover the story in The Leonardo Chronicles.

۞>>>>۞<<<<۞

۞>>>>My Weekend Happenings<<<<۞

My Sexy Saturday & Scintillating Sunday Showcase

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Weekend Writing Warriors

http://theancillarymuse.blogspot.com/
 
Too many weeds? I've left my wild foods recipes up
for the summer. Just scroll back and enjoy. Yum!

 http://calliopeswritingtablet.blogspot.com/

Sunday 7
**A promo op for you too!**
http://exquisitequills.blogspot.com/

Saturday's Musings & Fun Day Sunday

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۞>>>>NEW & COMING SOON<<<<۞

Find my scorching novels in ebook and paperback at
Amazon and Barnes & Noble and
wherever love stories are sold
Sample the First Chapters Here

Weekend Writing Warriors #8sunday (RO)(ER)

It's Sunday and time for the Weekend Writing Warriors. Participants post 8-10 sentences from a writing project, either published or unpublished. Today it's another bit from The Leonardo Chronicles a bind-up of my award-winning, Victorian polyamorous series Loving Leonardo.

First my 10, followed by details~
We’d all been helplessly tossed upon a course that wasn’t of our own making, and it remained to us to survive it.

Small, nearly imperceptible changes unfolded before me as though a beam of sunlight passed over her portrait in a mightily compressed sense of time. I watched her pupils slightly dilate as they searched from one to the other of my own. The shift of emotion showed first in her eyes. This I felt it as much as I witnessed it, for more than our minds were connected; our hearts and souls were linked. Hunting down Leonardo’s book had been a lark. But what began as a lark had bloomed into companionship, commonality, and profound love between the three of us. Especially between us two. She needed me as I needed her, as we needed him.

Her face turned to my palm and I felt her kiss upon it.

What just happened~
Luca is missing and a murdering madman is at large. Nicolas and Ellie are strung tight as bow strings with worry. Prior to this scene, Nicolas finds his wife in a gaming salon disguised as a young man. When he gets her home, tears of fear and frustration follow. London is a big place and Nicolas doesn't know where to look next. Needless to say, tensions are high.

What's at the heart of this unusual love story? 
Loving Leonardo has a message of tolerance between the lines. Aside from that, it's an exciting, sexy romp through Victorian Europe on a quest for a book written and illustrated by Leonardo da Vinci for his homosexual lover Salai. Discover the story in The Leonardo Chronicles.

۞>>>>۞<<<<۞

۞>>>>More on my other blogs<<<<۞

Romance Books '4' Us~ my Message in a Bottle post
http://romancebooks4us.blogspot.com/2015/07/message-in-bottle-by-rose-anderson.html

My Sexy Saturday & Scintillating Sunday Showcase

http://calliopesotherwritingtablet.blogspot.com/
 

Weekend Writing Warriors

http://theancillarymuse.blogspot.com/
 
Too many weeds? I've left my wild foods recipes up
for the summer. Just scroll back and enjoy. Yum!

 http://calliopeswritingtablet.blogspot.com/

Sunday 7
**A promo op for you too!**
http://exquisitequills.blogspot.com/

Saturday's Musings & Fun Day Sunday

http://calliopeswritingtablet.com/

۞>>>>NEW & COMING SOON<<<<۞

Find my scorching novels in ebook and paperback at
Amazon and Barnes & Noble and
wherever love stories are sold
Sample the First Chapters Here

Weekend Writing Warriors #8sunday (RO)(ER)

It's Sunday and time for the Weekend Writing Warriors. Participants post 8-10 sentences from a writing project, either published or unpublished. Today it's a bit from The Leonardo Chronicles a bind-up of my award-winning, Victorian polyamorous series Loving Leonardo.

First my 10, followed by details~
I watched my wife prepare herself, standing before the wall mirror, her tongue poking in concentration as she arranged the pins in her hair and tightened the curls that were want to spill free. Several cinnamon strands wouldn’t cooperate and these she rolled around and around her finger until they were tight curls to be tucked under the rest. I was transfixed by the deliberate feminine processes whose end results were suggestive of the coifs of Degas’ ballerinas. Thomas was correct. Women were a breed apart, but as the French said, Vive La Différence!

She removed her blouse, skirts, and bustle, and for some reason my mind took a different turn. In my mind’s eye I saw her naked and gagged with a burlap sack over her head. For two days now my mind had been intermittently taken by that terrible image, followed by an instantaneous albeit short-lived feeling of dread. I couldn’t say why, but for some reason I felt it now. The sensation that Thomas often referred to as “a goose walking over a grave.” Kneeling, I helped her from her shoes and stockings. Lifting the hem of her camisole, I pressed my forehead to her bare belly and hugged her to me. How I loved this precious nymph.

What just happened~
Leaving the violence of Venice behind, my trio heads to Rome to follow clues in Leonardo da Vinci's book. Nicolas has been feeling a heavy sense of dread over the last few days. Here he takes a moment to appreciate his wife and the dread returns unbidden. Something is not quite right.


What's at the heart of this unusual love story? 
Loving Leonardo has a message of tolerance between the lines. Aside from that, it's an exciting, sexy romp through Victorian Europe on a quest for a book written and illustrated by Leonardo da Vinci for his homosexual lover Salai.

There are two books in the ongoing adventure series and more to come. I invite you into a decadent Victorian world of artworks and secrets. Discover more in The Leonardo Chronicles. 

۞>>>>۞<<<<۞

۞>>>>More on my other blogs<<<<۞
Romance Books '4' Us~
Message in a Bottle
http://romancebooks4us.blogspot.com/2015/07/message-in-bottle-by-rose-anderson.html

#FreedomHop,My Sexy Saturday & Scintillating Sunday Showcase

http://calliopesotherwritingtablet.blogspot.com/
 

Weekend Writing Warriors

http://theancillarymuse.blogspot.com/
 
Too many weeds? I've left my wild foods recipes up.
Just scroll back and enjoy. Yum!

 http://calliopeswritingtablet.blogspot.com/
 
Sunday 7
**A promo op for you too!**
http://exquisitequills.blogspot.com/

My Main Blog ~ Thomas Jefferson's Edits

http://calliopeswritingtablet.com/

Sample all of my love stories for free
including the one featured today!

See my Links page. I'm everywhere!

Weekend Writing Warriors #8sunday (RO)(ER)

It's Sunday and time for the Weekend Writing Warriors. Participants post 8-10 sentences from a writing project, either published or unpublished. Today it's a bit from The Leonardo Chronicles a bind-up of my award-winning, Victorian polyamorous series Loving Leonardo.

First my 10, followed by details~

Our quarters faced the fountain with its Egyptian obelisk in the center, and the ancient Pantheon just beyond. Luca procured a room two doors down. 

Rome was a bustling place with beggars and pilgrims packing the streets like so many sardines in a tin. Human nature being what it is, we decided to remove temptation and paid to have Ellie’s entire trousseau and my trunk brought into our rooms. There may be pious devotion here, but as we witnessed a half-dozen pickpockets in action, we were certain the counterbalance had a strong footing too.

I stood at the window looking down upon the busy street while Ellie attended to her toilette. I’d been in Rome on my grand tour and this visit, as the last, filled me with the same dichotomy of emotion. My eye was caught by a shriveled slovenly woman begging on the street below who had a babe in arms and no fewer than seven hungry, filthy children in orbit around her skirts. Within a few feet, a rotund cardinal with his bright red robes and matching wide-brimmed biretta walked by happily devouring his pastry. He didn’t give the starving children a second glance, not even the toddling child who held a beseeching hand out as he walked by.

What just happened~
On the hunt for fanciful declarations of love from Leonardo da Vinci to his long-time lover Salai, my companions have just arrived at their hotel in Rome. They plan to visit the Vatican Museum. Clues in Leonardo's book suggest a particular painting has da Vinci's message to his lover worked into it somehow. Nicolas has been to Rome before. As a sensitive soul, the stark contrast between the haves and have nots sits heavy on his heart.


What's at the heart of this unusual love story? 
Love knows no boundaries. Loving Leonardo has a message of tolerance between the lines. Aside from that, it's an exciting, sexy romp through Victorian Europe on a quest for a book written and illustrated by Leonardo da Vinci for his homosexual lover Salai.

There are two books in the ongoing adventure series and more to come. I invite you into the decadent Victorian world of Loving Leonardo and adventure to come. Discover The Leonardo Chronicles. Available for pre-order on Amazon and it costs less than buying separately!

۞>>>>۞<<<<۞

۞>>>>More on my other blogs<<<<۞ 

My Sexy Saturday & Scintillating Sunday Showcase

http://calliopesotherwritingtablet.blogspot.com/
 

Weekend Writing Warriors

http://theancillarymuse.blogspot.com/
 
Too many weeds? I've left my wild foods recipes up.
Just scroll back and enjoy. Yum!

 http://calliopeswritingtablet.blogspot.com/
 
Sunday 7
**A promo op for you too!**
http://exquisitequills.blogspot.com/

My Main Blog ~ Interesting things all month long!

http://calliopeswritingtablet.com/

Sample all of my love stories for free
including the one featured today!

See my Links page. I'm everywhere!